There have been produced a number of bathing preparations containing various materials such as inorganic salts, crude drugs, oils, enzymes, perfumes and colorants. It has been known for a long time that crude drugs, in particular, herbs, would exert excellent bathing effects, for example, a warming effect when added to a bath. Thus, bathing preparations comprising fine herb pieces packaged in bags or those containing herb extracts are marketed today.
Among these herbs, furthermore, it has been known that rhizomes or roots of plants belonging to the family Umbelliferae such as Cnidium rhizoma or Augelicae radix, which have been widely employed as crude drugs for a long time, would have excellent bathing effects.
In order to achieve satisfactory bathing effects by using a crude drug of a plant belonging to the family Umbelliferae such as Cnidium rhizoma or Angelicae radix, however, it is required to use a large amount of the same, which brings about some problems. Namely, the addition of such a large amount of the herb might make the bath turbid. In addition, the large unit usage makes the application thereof inconvenient.
Thus it has been proposed to use an extract obtained by extracting a crude drug with, for example, hot water or a water/alcohol mixture as described, for example, in JP-A-63-246319 (the term "JP-A" as used herein means an "unexamined published Japanese Patent Application"). However the problem of the turbidity of the bath cannot be solved thereby. On the contrary, this process is accompanied by some problems such as the extraction procedure deteriorates the bathing effects and it is disadvantageous from an economical viewpoint.
In addition, the characteristic odor of a bathing preparation containing these herbs makes it such that it is not always favorable for everybody, which is an additional problem from the viewpoint of commercial preference.